USS West Virginia (hull number BB-48) was the fourth dreadnought battleship of the , though because was cancelled, she was the third and final member of the class to be completed. The Colorado class proved to be the culmination of the standard-type battleship series built for the United States Navy in the 1910s and 1920s; the ships were essentially repeats of the earlier design, but with a significantly more powerful main battery of eight guns in twin-gun turrets. West Virginia was built between her keel laying in 1920 and her commissioning into the Navy in 1923. The ship spent the 1920s and 1930s conducting routine training exercises, including the typically annual Fleet Problems, which provided invaluable experience for the coming war in the Pacific.
West Virginia was moored on Battleship Row on the morning of 7 December 1941 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into World War II. Badly damaged by torpedoes, the ship sank in the shallow water but was later refloated and extensively rebuilt over the course of 1943 and into mid-1944. She returned to service in time for the Philippines Campaign, where she led the American line of battle at the Battle of Surigao Strait on the night of 24–25 October. There, she was one of the few American battleships to use her radar to acquire a target in the darkness, allowing her to engage a Japanese squadron in what was the final action between battleships in naval history.
After Surigao Strait, the ship remained in the Philippines to support troops fighting during the Battle of Leyte in 1944 and then supported the invasion of Lingayen Gulf in early 1945. The ship also took part in the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa later that year, providing extensive fire support to the ground forces invading those islands. During the latter operation, she was hit by a kamikaze that did little damage. Following the surrender of Japan, West Virginia took part in the initial occupation and thereafter participated in Operation Magic Carpet, carrying soldiers and sailors from Hawaii to the mainland United States before being deactivated in 1946. She was decommissioned in 1947 and assigned to the Pacific Reserve Fleet, where she remained until 1959 when she was sold to ship breakers and dismantled.
Design
In 1916, design work was completed on the next class of battleships to be built for the United States Navy beginning in 1917. These ships were nearly direct copies of the preceding , with the exception of the main battery, which increased from twelve guns to eight guns. The Colorado class proved to be the last class of battleships completed of the standard type.
West Virginia was long overall and she had a beam of and a draft of . She displaced as designed and up to at full load. The ship was powered by four General Electric turbo-electric drives with steam provided by eight oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers. The ship's propulsion system was rated at for a top speed of , though on speed trials she reached and a speed of . She had a normal cruising range of at , but additional fuel space could be used in wartime to increase her range to at that speed. Her crew numbered 64 officers and 1,241 enlisted men.
She was armed with a main battery of eight 16 in /45 caliber Mark 1 guns in four twin-gun turrets on the centerline, two forward and two aft in superfiring pairs. The secondary battery consisted of sixteen /51 caliber guns, mounted individually in casemates clustered in the superstructure amidships. She carried an anti-aircraft battery of eight /50 caliber guns in individual high-angle mounts. As was customary for capital ships of the period, she had a torpedo tube mounted in her hull below the waterline on each broadside. West Virginias main armored belt was thick, while the main armored deck was up to thick. The main battery gun turrets had thick faces on barbettes. Her conning tower had thick sides.
Service history Prewar career
The keel for West Virginia was laid down at the Newport News Shipbuilding Company of Newport News, Virginia on 12 April 1920. While under construction, she received the hull number BB-48 on 17 July. Her completed hull was launched on 19 November 1921 and she was commissioned on 1 December 1923. West Virginia was to have been the fourth member of the class, but her sister ship was cancelled due to the Washington Naval Treaty that was signed in 1922. Captain Thomas J. Senn was the ship's first commander. On entering service, she began sea trials and a shakedown cruise, followed by repairs at Newport News. She then sailed north to the New York Navy Yard for further alterations. She then steamed south to Hampton Roads, and while en route her steering gear malfunctioned. She underwent an overhaul there to correct the problem and she got underway again on 16 June 1924; while cruising through Lynnhaven Channel at 10:10, the telegraphs for the engine room and steering compartment lost power, rendering the ship unmaneuverable. Senn had to use voice tubes to communicate with the engine room, ordering the port engines to full power and the starboard to stop in an attempt to steer the ship away from the shore. But West Virginia drifted in the channel and ran aground, though she was not damaged in the accident. A subsequent inquiry into the incident faulted incorrect navigational data that exaggerated the size of the navigable part of the channel, exonerating Senn and the ship's navigator.
On 30 October, West Virginia became the flagship for the Commander, Battleship Divisions, Battle Fleet. The ship spent the 1920s conducting routine training exercises and maneuvers with the fleet, punctuated by periodic overhauls; each year's training schedule culminated in the major Fleet Problems that tested operational and strategic doctrine that proved to be critical in the operations conducted against Japan during World War II. These operations took place in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as far north as Alaska and as far south as Panama. In 1925, while Captain Arthur Japy Hepburn commanded the ship, her gunners scored first place during a competition for short range shooting. West Virginia won the Battle Efficiency ribbon that year as well. Later in 1925, the fleet conducted joint Army-Navy maneuvers in Hawaii to test the defenses of the islands before embarking on a major cruise to visit Australia and New Zealand. West Virginia won Battle Efficiency ribbons in 1927, 1932, and 1933. During Fleet Problem X in March 1930, West Virginia was "bombed" by aircraft from the aircraft carrier . In Fleet Problem XI, held the following month, she and the battleship accidentally engaged the carrier , a fellow member of the "black" fleet, mistaking her for the "blue" fleet carrier Lexington. The simulated friendly fire cost "black" fleet their carrier and led to calls for improved communication between ships and better ship identification training.
In the early 1930s, the ship underwent a minor modification. Her battery of 3-inch anti-aircraft guns were replaced with 5-inch /25 cal. guns and .50-caliber machine guns were installed on her fore and main masts. She also received aircraft catapults on her quarterdeck and atop the rear superfiring turret. During Fleet Problem XIV in February 1933, West Virginia and the battleship were "damaged" in a surprise attack by "black" fleet submarines. Plans to modernize West Virginia dated to the mid-1930s, when the navy considered modifying the ship extensively; the Bureau of Construction and Repair planned to add anti-torpedo bulges that would have restored a considerable amount of buoyancy to the hull, raising her at the cost of an additional displacement. The work was not carried out, and in 1937 further plans to modernize West Virginia, her sister ships, and the two Tennessee-class ships, were considered. The proposed modifications included new boilers and fire control equipment and the previously suggested bulges. Further development of the modernization program in 1938 was rejected due to its cost and the fact that, even as modernized, the vessels would be inferior to the new and s being built.
Following the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Admiral Ernest King led a board to evaluate anti-aircraft defenses of the fleet's ships, and it recommended adding blisters to restore freeboard, the adoption of 5 in /38 cal. dual-purpose guns, and a strengthening of the ships' decks. The Chief of Naval Operations decided that, as a result of the likelihood of war, only the bulges would be fitted, and West Virginia was slated to undergo the work from 10 May to 8 August 1941, though the modification was not carried out. The Navy conducted the final iteration of the series, Fleet Problem XXI, in April 1940, by which time tensions with Japan over the latter's initiation of the Second Sino-Japanese War had led the United States to transfer the fleet from California to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as a deterrent to further aggression by Japan. The fleet spent 1941 occupied with extensive training to prepare for the anticipated war with Japan, even after the diplomatic situation increasingly worsened in the final months of the year. During this period, the Navy sought to improve the anti-aircraft batteries of the fleet's battleships, but production of the new guns was slow, so old 3 in guns were reinstalled as a temporary measure. The ship also had eleven .50-cal. machine guns by this time. In June, men aboard West Virginia fabricated an experimental gun shield for the 5 in guns, which were to be applied to other ships. West Virginia was to have had her 1.1 in guns installed in February 1942.
World War II
Pearl Harbor
On the morning of 7 December 1941, West Virginia and the rest of the fleet were moored at Battleship Row in Pearl Harbor; West Virginia was tied alongside Tennessee. Japanese aircraft appeared over the harbor shortly before 08:00, beginning the surprise attack on the base. Torpedo bombers hit the ship with seven Type 91 torpedoes on her port side, while bombers hit her with a pair of armor-piercing shells that had been converted into bombs. The first bomb hit the port side and penetrated the superstructure deck, causing extensive damage to the casemates below. Secondary explosions of the ammunition stored in the casemates caused serious fires there and in the galley deck below them. The second bomb struck the rear superfiring turret roof; it penetrated but failed to explode. It nevertheless destroyed one of the guns and the OS2U Kingfisher floatplane on the catapult atop the turret. It also knocked a second aircraft down to the main deck. That Kingfisher spilled gasoline on the deck that then caught on fire.